Deus sive Natura (Spinoza)

We see, therefore, that men are accustomed to call natural things perfect or imperfect more from prejudice than from true knowledge of those things. For we have shown in the Appendix of Part I, that Nature does nothing on account of an end. That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature, acts from the same necessity from which he exists. For we have shown (EIP16) that the necessity of nature from which he acts is the same as that from which he exists. The reason, therefore, or cause, why God, or Nature, acts, and the reason why he exists, are one and the same. As he exists for the sake of no end, he also acts for the sake of no end. Rather, as he has no principle or end of existing, so he also has none of acting. What is called a final cause is nothing but a human appetite insofar as it is considered as a principle, or primary cause, of some thing. (from the Preface of the Fourth Part of the Ethics, by Benedict de Spinoza, translated by Edwin Curley)

Published by John Willemsens

Advayavada Buddhism teacher - Buddhist name: Advayavadananda. Born in Holland in 1934, lived 1939-1964 in Argentina, happily married to Anne.

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